It can happen here..

[undergroundpanther]

"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

-- Frederick Douglass

Read on..
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2440309
http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/kaleidoscope/volume6/page16.html

"Most Americans have never seen the ignorance, degradation, hunger, sickness, and futility in which many other Americans live … They won't become involved in economic or political change until something brings the seriousness of the situation home to them."

-- Shirley Chisholm

"There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread."

-- Mother Teresa



I'll bring it home to you, how far do you dare to empathize ?
Will you touch them,give them spare change, walk on by,blame them, or what?

http://www.usccb.org/cchd/povertyusa/tour.htm
http://www.cfah.org/factsoflife/vol3no1.cfm
http://www.ssw.umich.edu/trapped/pubs_trapped.pdf.
http://www.bookmasters.com/clarity/b0015a.htm

Want it MORE personal?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=250x2187
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/undergroundpanther

[ceile]

1. Dear Undergroundpanther,

Thank you for posting those links. I especially was taken in by the thread posted by votesomemore. I work for our local MHMR authority, but on the administrative side. We struggle everyday to do what we can, but with all that Gov. GoodHair has taken from us we fail miserably. We have great reps like Nashtat and Dukes that do what they can, but with a repub controlled gov't we again fail miserably. I know it is discouraging (I suffer from mental illness myself which is a daily battle and sometimes things don't seem worth it), but please take at least a little comfort knowing that they are some of us working to make things better. That we care and hopefully we will be able to help all those truly in need.

[mntleo2]

2. Oh Hon...

They will always pass us by, we are invisible. But I no longer grieve that. Here's why:

This can be good sometimes because we are the ones who can do things they cannot because we are not seen. Wecan actually have more power being poor than others. Someimes PM me and I will talk to you more about that, if you have any questions.

I learned that secret a long time ago from some elderly children of slaves I once knew, but it took me years to hear "in between" their words. I am white, but I have lived a far richer life being poor and with my disabled, and/or black and/or brown brothers and sisters than many of my middle class white friends ever thought of. And now I feel sorry for them because, well, they have missed out on a lot because their lives are far more ... orchestrated than mine. I have become convinced that is why they have to make up all those REALLY silly and often insane rules for the poor. Because on some level they know we are freer than they are and it pisses them off. How DARE we? We can be ourselves and they have to hide themselves because otherwise they think they will lose everything (material) ~ and they very likely would!

Now I am proud of who and what I am. I would rather have nothing and a soul than live rich and not have one and I am convinced that if you are rich, you have sold your soul. In order to eat and make sure I have a place to sleep, I often will follow through on the silly rules (unless I find it is harming me or someone else and then that is a hill I will pick to die on) and I just have to laugh inside at their silly seriousness and sense of importance.

St Francis gave up all his riches for a reason. He said said he was "God's clown" (well he said he was God's Troubador, which in his time were the court poets and jesters). He lived in poverty for the rest of his life and then he saw the folly of the world's acceptance of all society's insane things being taken as the sanest things.

As another poor "Bozo" I think I see what he means. :o)))))))

Love,
Cat

[Sinti]

3. Many more people need to understand and recognize the existence

of the nightmare world that can be America today.

Thanks for trying to point it out.

[BeHereNow]

4. Kicked and recommended.

I'm so glad I clicked on this thread-
EXCELLENT post.
Thank you-
BHN:thumbsup: :hug:

[undergroundpanther]

5. Thanks everyone for reading it.

Thanks.